Moms Demand Action has initiated a program to contact pediatricians and encourage them to have conversations with their patients regarding kids, guns and safety.  The materials made available to the pediatricians include wall posters, brochures and postcards outlining the SMART concepts for keeping kids safe from gun violence.  In Wilmington we have contacted more than a dozen offices and have had about a 30% success rate.  Many thanks to Wilmington Health ( 6 offices ), Carolina Pediatricians of Wilmington ( 2 offices ), Dr. Egg Pediatric Dentistry ( 1 office ) and Lauren Brooks for placing posters in their offices and handing out literature to patients.  A special thank you to Wilmington Health for requesting a poster with both English and Spanish on the same one.  This has become very popular and was an excellent idea.  And another heartfelt thanks to Carolina Pediatricians of Wilmington for placing a link to the Be Smart website on theirs.  Another wonderful idea of a way to educate people on how to keep kids safe from gun violence.   We will continue our efforts and hope to have further success with other pediatrician’s offices.

A Gun Violence Prevention Coalition has been formed in Raleigh and I have attended several meetings along with others from Wilmington Faiths Against Gun Violence.  My personal involvement has been on the School Safety workgroup.  I have attended several workgroup meetings where school board members, SROs and security experts have given insights into the actual functioning of the current policies in place to try and keep kids safe while at school.  These discussions have been insightful and have helped to know where to best address this issue of school safety.

Moms Demand Action has also done a study and presented an action plan for the best practices for preventing school gun incidents.  Basically, it requires the entire community to work together to define a potential threat before an incident occurs, having in place adequate methods and resources for addressing these types of threats and good common sense gun laws.  Please vote for candidates that understand the need for common sense gun legislation.  This is the best way to change the culture and reduce gun violence in our country and help keep kids safe.